


Cabin Fever

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Cabin Fic, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: Best Bros Cassian and Azriel are due to visit their adoptive family for the festive season. There's just one problem, in the form of their dearest mother setting a condition:They both have to bring dates.Thankfully, they always have each other.





	1. Bros over Hos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [highladycasandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highladycasandra/gifts).



If there was one thing in life Cassian truly feared, it was his adoptive mother. 

No woman on earth was more tenderly sympathetic, nor brutally honest. And this email - which was supposed to be inviting them with love and affection to join her for Christmas - proved it. “Listen to this,” Cassian muttered to Az, who sat beside beside him trying to solve the morning crossword. “Dear Cassian, and by extension Azriel. Cassian, darling, you have got to stop living in his apartment and leeching off of his food. You are a full grown man with your own living quarters.” He could only stare at the laptop screen. “It’s like she’s psychic.”

“That or you’re predictable,” Az quipped back, as unmoving, unflinching, and unemotive as ever. “Okay twelve down: four letters, ‘affection’. Ideas?”

“Sexy,” Cassian answered for him, before continuing his reading, “Okay so after she’s insulted my good name - which is totally unfair by the way. We both know you’d live on fucking pot noodles and crumbs if it wasn’t for me being here to cook for you. Anyway, so Ma says: The both of you are invited to join your sister and I for Christmas in the cabins this year. However, I’m setting a circumstance this year: If the both of you don’t bring dates with you, you can’t come.” 

Only Rhea, their adoptive mother, could provoke Azriel into a full-blown reaction. Right at this point, he was choking on his tea. “What?” He demanded, setting aside his paper and mug to seize the laptop from his not-technically-a-roommate-more-a-live-in-cook-roommate. Rereading the email, he stammered. Again: Only Rhea. “What on earth provoked this?”

“She keeps watching that ‘secret lives of five year olds’ or whatever program. It’s making her broody,” Cassian decided, which was not unfair given after every episode she sent him a texting saying ‘When are my grandchildren getting here?’

“She can’t possibly ask this of us,” Azriel said. They both loved their adoptive mother dearly, even Azriel, who’d come to them so much later, when he was already sixteen and as angsty a teenager as could possibly be imagined. “Rhys doesn’t-”

“Oh, apparently he’s bringing someone. You remember Feyre? They’re engaged.”

“How- How did I, aka ‘The Spymaster’, not know this?” Azriel asked gravely. 

“Babe, I don’t think your World of Warcraft username says much about your personality. You’re kind of dense when it comes to the people close to you.” 

This was truly egregious news, given how Azriel’s job was essentially that of a modern day spy. Cassian wasn’t quite sure which shadowy government organization he worked for, but knowing Azriel, it was probably all of them in some capacity. Probably playing them against one another from behind the veiling curtain. But when it came down to matters of friends, family, and the heart? Thick as two short planks. 

“She can’t do this to me,” Azriel said with a sigh, handing the offending laptop back. “Not after Mor-”

“Az, Mor’s been dating Vi and Andy for over a year now. You can’t keep using that as an excuse to live in here married to your work.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”

“I am! I just want you to stop moping about here and eating all my food.”

“This is literally my house, Cass. My food.”

“And yet who is it that cannot even produce toast unburned? Oh, and remember that one time you somehow managed to burn water? Oh, and what about-”

“Enough!” Azriel protested, snatching up his paper and scowling into it. “Four letter word…”

“There’s more,” Cassian warned him, scrolling back through the email. Clearing his throat, he continued his dramatic reading, “The both of you need some incentive, else you’ll end up with no one but each other for the rest of your lives. And I don’t want the female (or male) population to have to endure an unwed Cassian for the rest of his lifetime.” 

“Fair,” Az snorted, very unhelpfully. 

Cass trawled through the trivial updates on how their sister Lena was doing, how their mother’s new boyfriend was brilliant at replacing them as the men about the house, and so forth. She ended it with: ‘P.S. I’m serious about bringing dates. And don’t hire someone like last time, Cassian’. “Just because I brought a mime to Christmas Dinner,” Cassian muttered. “She was the one who said I had to bring a date right after Nesta rejected me.”

“She does this a lot, doesn’t she? We probably should have seen it coming.”

Stewing in silence, the two full grown men pouted like petulant children. “What we gonna do, bud?” Cassian asked, looking after at his best friend who was supposed to be a super genius spy, or some shit. 

“Not call me ‘bud’ for starters, that’s what.”

“What else you want me to call you?” Cassian jeered with a sneer, leaning over to talk annoyingly close to his ear. “ _ Baaabe _ ? What about- Oh my shit.” Were this a cartoon, a lightbulb would just have pinged over his head. However, because this was real life, he just froze for a minute whilst Azriel frowned at him. 

 

“I’m worried already,” Azriel informed him, because he knew what his best friend’s thinking face looked like. It was a dangerous thing for a Cassian to do, this thinking business. Especially after a Saturday morning joint and not enough coffee. 

“Right, so, genius plan. We don’t find dates.”

“Okay, I’m liking it so far.”

“So instead,” Cassian says with an enormous, ‘I’m-such-a-smartass’ grin, “we go _ together. _ ”

Azriel blinked back at him. “But… we always go together?”

“Not like that. Like, t _ ogether _ together. I’ll be your date, you be mine. Not only will that solve the find a date we don’t want to bring problem, but it will also make mummy dearest  _ shit herself _ . Perfect revenge plan, no?”

As usual whenever Cassian devised one of his cunning plans, Azriel was about to tear it to pieces. Then he stopped, and thought about it some. He mulled it over, frowning at his crossword. “Love.”

“What?”

“Twelve down, ‘love’. Okay, finished.” Setting the paper aside, he looked over at his best friend for life, late to the game brother, and accidental live in cook. Now, he’d be adding ‘fake boyfriend’ to the list. “Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” Cassian said, shocked to not be laughed out of the house. 

“Yeah,” Az repeated, before breaking into a rare smile. “It’ll be the _ perfect _ Christmas.”  

 

*

 

Come December, they drove up together in the hired range rover to the mountainside. It was a thickly wooded area, snow drifts covering the treetops and clear ground. They were lucky enough their adoptive family was  _ filthy _ rich, because all the tourists were on the other side of the mountain, so their family pretty much had the place to themselves. Nestled amongst the great pine trees and redwoods, the cabin grounds awaited.

Built by their father’s family over several generations, the cabins were a mishmash of styles and woods, some shabby-chic, the more modern ones minimalistic or luxurious. And standing before all of them was their mother, Rhea.

“My boys! Look at you!” She called, running up to greet them as they clambered out of the enormous car. She might be terrifying, but how loving she was by far the scariest part. They hadn’t seen one another all year, given how they resided on different sides of the country and Az’s job kept him busy and Cassian couldn’t leave him to fend for himself, and it showed through how she was crying already. 

Hugging the pair of them fiercely, she did her usual motherly inspection. “Azriel, you look more handsome than ever, and much less like a skeleton than last year, despite Cassian stealing your food.”

“You literally know that this is all thanks to me, how can I be the one getting blamed here?” Cassian protested, though it was cut off my his mother squeezing the air out of him with her infamous bear hugs, a trait he had inherited from her. 

“I swear, you’re near thirty and you’re still getting taller every year,” She said, head buried in her chest because that was as far as she could reach. “Oh, I’ve missed the both of you so much. Though I might have to miss you some more.” Pulling back from them, she crossed her arms. No look was more terrifying than the ‘calculating mother’ look she gave them now, one they knew very, very well. “I believe I requested the both of you bring dates?”

“We did,” Cassian said cheerfully, trying not to laugh and give the game away. Azriel was a statue of stone beside him, as calm and serene as ever. 

“Oh? Did you store them in the boot? Are they invisible?” Rhea asked with heavy sarcasm, trying to peer over their shoulders to double check the car through its tinted windows. “You know it’s awfully rude to leave people waiting.”

Taking the both of them by surprise, Azriel leaned over and loops his arm with Cassian, clasping his hand. To top it all off, he propped his head on the other’s shoulder, turning them into the perfect image of the perfect couple. “We brought each other.”

The two males waited. They were prepared for the screaming, the outrage at how they’d tricked her again, the seething of how that wasn’t what she meant. What happened was far worse: Rhea started tearing up. “Oh my- I’m so sorry,” she sniffled, pawing at her eyes as she averted her gaze. “I just- I never thought the two of you would realise it. I didn’t want to bring it up, I mean Az you never even said you like  _ men _ , let alone- Oh my  _ boys _ .” She dragged them both back into a squashed group hug. “I’m so happy for you.”

Pushed flush against one another, Az and Cass looked at one another over their mother’s head. The look they gave one another didn’t need words to be translated; It clearly said ‘ _ What the hell have we done? _ ’

 

*

 

“What do we  _ do _ ?” Cassian hissed as their mother closed the door behind her, leaving the two men alone in their shared cabin. With one bed. One double bed. 

“Why?” Az said faintly. “Why do I ever listen to your plans?”

“Hey, you thought this was a good idea, don’t blame me!”

“You came up with it!”

“I come up with a lot of stupid things. It’s your job to stop me from doing them!”

Yelling at one another from opposite sides of the cabin wasn’t going to help. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cassian exhaled deeply and tried to think, dangerous as that was. “We can’t tell her it’s fake,” he said, stating the obvious. “Not after she cried from joy because she thought we’d hooked up.”

“Agreed.”

“So… So I mean the only thing we can do is… keep being a couple.” 

They stared at one another. Just to make matters worse, Cassian started picturing it; snuggling around in the warmth of the cabins, having to sit next to one another holding hands whilst watching the family christmas movies. Sleeping together in bed.

The burning in his cheeks was  _ not _ blushing. No way. 

“You okay with that?” Az asked quietly. He’d collapsed back down on the bed, as if the world was too heavy for his legs to handle. Cass had seen that look before, knew it as a sign of when the stress was getting too much for the other, making the less than amiable part of his brain start telling him awful things. Like the idea that he wasn’t worth having around. Which quite frankly, was bullshit. 

“Totally. Listen, mom freaked us out with that sobbing thing, yeah. But like, think about it. This just means we don’t have to put up with any awkward girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever that we don’t really know and don’t really want to be locked up on the mountainside with for three weeks. It means anytime the rest get to be too much, we can just go hang out and pretend we’re banging. I mean normally we don’t get to hang out enough at these things because Christmas family insanity. This time? We’re just two newly dating horny boys in love.”

Az glanced up at him as he came to sit beside him, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “Are  _ you  _ okay with it?” It was times like these when he wished his best mate wasn’t so hard to read, all dark eyes and too strong cheekbones that made him look like he was constantly brooding, so he had no idea when he was and wasn’t. Those deep set dark eyes stared back at him now, thinking. 

“I think so, yeah.” He gave a nervous laugh. “What a way to come out to mom though.” 

Cassian joined in the laughing then, before cutting off short. “Wait, for real? You’re-”

“Do you really think we drunk make out so much because I’m  _ straight _ ?” Az said in deadpan, wearing his ‘Cassian-is-a-moron’ expression. 

“Fair point. Also, excellent proof as to how we shall be amazing at this.” If Cassian recalled correctly, those alcohol-soaked makeout sessions had been spectacular. “Side note, you’re a really great kisser. In case drunk me never told you.”

“Drunk you did,” Az said with a less insulting smirk. “Several times, every time. You really put the affection in affectionate drunk. Especially when you start stroking my hair.”

“Not my fault it’s so soft. I can barely resist sober. I don’t stand a chance drunk.” 

Snorting, Az shook his head and looked thoughtfully at the far wall. “This is going to be the weirdest Christmas ever, isn’t it?”

“If by weirdest you mean best, then hell yes,” Cassian corrected him. To seal the deal, he leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “Now come on. Let’s unpack and go see if the other’s have arrived.  _ Babe _ .”

Azriel looked at him. Cassian had learned to real him well enough to know that this particular deadpan expression meant he was hysterically laughing inside. “You’re awful.  _ Babe. _ So let’s do this.”

“You’re on.”

 

*

 

The hardest by far to convince was Rhysand. They barely saw him the first evening, for the minute he arrived - late - he pretty much vanished into this cabin with Feyre. Yet come the next morning, he was a true freak of nature and up at the crack of dawn, so that Cassian couldn’t even sneak out for early bro-breakfast undisturbed. 

“So only this morning did I hear the news,” Rhysand said without looking up from where he was slicing fruit into two bowls. “Mother informed me the pair of you are now dating.” 

“Surprise!” Cassian said lamely, quick to put an arm around Azriel’s waist. It was bitterly cold outside, but nice and warm in their parent’s enormous, kitchen-equipped cabin. Not to mention Az felt boiling, so much so that snuggling up to him was the opposite of effort. If anything, Cass had serious qualms about ever letting go. 

“Is there a reason you-” Rhys seemed hellbent on interrogating them, but he got distracted by how Cassian had now semi-engulfed Azriel with his body. “Uh, Cass, are you?”

“Shhh,” He informed the eldest brother, before mumbling into the other’s shoulder. “ _ So warm _ .”

“He had way too much mulled wine last night,” Az said by way of explanation, looking down at his newly acquired lichen. 

“So I can see,” Rhys said, slowly. 

Maneuvering a little awkwardly given the seven foot man attached to him, Azriel walked them over to the kitchen counter. Lucky for him, the smell of food was always enough to call Cassian to attention. “Oh  _ Shaddai _ , that smells good bro. What are you- Oh shit,  _ bacon _ .” 

“Be on your guard,” Az warned him, taking a seat at the bar and watching his fake boyfriend with caution. “Else he’ll-”

It was too late. Cassian had already commandeered two slices straight from the pan. He didn’t regret it, even as Rhysand whacked him over the head with a ripe banana. “Mmm, smoky,” he said instead of an apology, grinning at how mortified his fake boyfriend was looking. 

“Can’t take you anywhere,” Azriel grumbled into the counter. He was a weird one, Az, always awake at ungodly hours, but always so grumpy in the mornings. Thankfully, Cassian had learned the secret art of remedying this situation. 

Two ultra strong cups of black coffee brewed and set before his boyfriend in offering, Cassian grinned as the creature leaned over, sniffed at it, and then pulled the mugs towards him, taking long drags despite it being steaming hot. Rhys watched this whole affair in something akin to horror. “I leave you guys alone for two years, and this is what happens?”

“Hey, you move halfway across the world, you don’t get a say in our habits,” Cassian fired back, watching the beast consume his sacrifices. “Better, grumpy pants?”

Az merely nodded, too busy drinking to speak. Looking between them, Rhys seemed to think on a comeback for a moment before sighing. For a moment, he even looked kind of… sad. “You guys really are a thing, huh?” He said, leaning on the counter to watch them. “I feel kind of left out. But I guess we’re not the troublesome trio anymore. And I mean, I did leave the country and I’m getting married.” His sad expression melted into an even more heartbreaking grin. “I’m really happy for you guys. Can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

 

His words should feel like a knife being twisted in Cassian’s gut, but instead Cass just feels like hugging him. So he does, because he’s that kind of guy. “Hey, you’re not left out. I mean, if you want a threesome.” 

“Cass,” Az whined in exasperation as Rhys pushed him and his monster bear hugs away. 

“I’m good, thanks. I mean guys are fun and all but it’d be weird with you. I’ve known you since what, we were like eight?” 

Cassian was going to give him that one before realising yet another thing. “Wait? Did mom really somehow manage to adopt  _ three _ bisexuals?”

“She’s clearly got some kind of sixth sense,” Rhys fired back with a cocky grin that earned him a playful shove on the shoulder. 

“Go back to your fiance, asshole. But we’re catching up later, when you’re not looking quite so sex-hair-y.”

“Says you.” 

Cass didn’t get to make a comeback because Rhys vanished, off to serve his depleted breakfast to his beau. It was a good thing, because he’s not sure what he would say, to busy thinking about what would have to entail for him to end up in such a way. “He really has been gone too long if he doesn’t know your hair naturally looks like a garbage pile” Az supplied for him, his two mugs emptied. Despite the insult, he still had the nerve to hand one back to Cassian Dickensian orphan style. 

Like the whipped boyfriend he is, Cassian not only made him another, but refilled the other one too. As Az hummed cheerfully to himself, looking rather pleased at how well trained he’s become, Cass worked on breakfast. Hangovers made him hungry, and two slices of bacon a meal does not make. 

“Kiss for the cook?” Cassian teased, sliding the stack of pancakes over the counter for Az’s appraisal. 

“If you come over here,” Az shot back, draining his mug. 

Taking him up on that challenge, Cass slunk round the counter and leaned over it beside him, grinning a victory grin. Too bad for him Az followed through, leaning up and pecking him on the cheek, reeking of coffee and something salty and fresh, like the sea. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell. “You awake, sleepyhead?” Azriel teased him right back, prompting him to realise that he’d kind of broken, just leaning there next to him, staring. 

“Not my fault someone drank all the coffee.”

“ _ You  _ cannot be trusted with coffee. You remember what happened last time.”

Oh did Cassian remember. His previous experience with caffeinated beverages had involved a coffee machine, the selecting of ‘espresso’, and confusion as to why the machine had only given him a sixth of a cup. He’d become increasingly frustrated as it took him six more times to fill the damn cup up. It had tasted crap too, far too bitter, but after all that effort, he’d finished it. 

He didn’t really remember the next twenty four hours, but Azriel later informed him that he’d come home to find him hanging off of his old chin-lift bar like a bat. Supposedly, he’d even hissed at him and growled “I’m Batman.” But that was  _ one _ time. 

“Awh, are you sulking now?” Az said, tucking him under the chin with one finger. He was all sly eyes and narrow smiles and all of a sudden, Cassian was kissing him. 

“So it’s for real,” Morrigan’s voice called from the kitchen door. On automatic, the two jumped apart, this time both of them scarlet. “I thought Rhea was just having me on.” 

“Nope,” Cassian blurted, ears burning, face burning, not quite sure what just happened. “Nope, we are very much in love.”

“Well, duh,” Mor drawled, padding over in her nightgown to brew some tea for her awaiting lovers. “I could have told you that years ago. You two are just dense. Watching you make out every time you get drunk and then do nothing about it has been so  _ boring _ . Like, Ross and Rachel were not this bad. Me and my queer crisis were not this bad.”

“Why does everyone think we’ve been in love this whole time?” Casian demanded hotly, because she really wasn’t making things any less embarrassing. “We’ve always just been bros. Bro bros. Bros who bro, not hoe.” 

“Yeah sure,” Mor said, batting a hand at them in dismissal. “Bros who cuddle during films. Bros who fuss over one another like you’re married. Bros who live together, eat together, go out to movies together. I bet you both sit around in the mornings in pyjamas and do bloody crossword puzzles together too.”

“Azriel does those, not me!” Cassian pointed out, scowling and stabbing four pancakes to bring them at his mercy. “Dyslexia and that shit are not a hot combo. Geez Mor, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”

“Bet he still asks you for help though,” Mor said knowingly as she loaded up a tray with mugs. 

Stumped, Cassian just watched her shimmy the tray up, speechless as she pecked them both on the cheek and vanished. “She- She is so- so-”

“Good job on kissing me when she was coming. Convincing her was going to be murder, given how she knows our bullshit better than anyone.” Az didn’t look at him as he diced up his pancake and picked at it like a bloody bird. It drove Cassian nuts how he always did that. Everything about this was driving him nuts. “I didn’t even see her.”

 

“Yeah, well.” Cassian fumbled, because how does he tell him: ‘Neither did I’?  


	2. Everything's Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you can tell, I napped my way through religious-education, so feel free to shove educational information at me regarding the mentioned religious practices.

Being a multi-faith family had the potential to be a real shit storm. Cass had been born to a Jewish family and had stuck to that even when being raised in the Islamic family of Rhea and Rhys. But then Rhea’s new partner was a hippie Buddhist type, Feyre was some denomination of Christianity, Mor was deeply into Wicca along with her partners, and as for Azriel? None of them were really sure  _ what _ he believed in, if anything. He just demonstrated a general willingness to engage in any and all of their practices, which was nice and easy. 

When it came to holiday seasons, you’d think it’d be a hellhole of arguing and shouting, just like most families with their colliding political views. Thankfully, with them it just…  _ worked, _ no matter what new addition joined in with the festivities.

Everyone was free to do whatever their various beliefs called them to do or not do up at the cabins, with only a few central staple items: they always had a pine tree - because Lena loved the idea of decorating them - and they always had a family dinner on what was Christmas day, because it was easier to co-ordinate in the Christian-dominated country they used to all live in. 

As such, Cass and his new fake boyfriend had been assigned to accompany Lena in the choosing of ‘The Tree’. Stuck up on a mountainside, they could hardly order one, but lucky for them they were slap bang next to a forest filled with offerings. 

Dashing on ahead, Lena, despite being sixteen by now, was as excited as she had been at the age of four. Ever since she’d seen the enormous collection of festive trees decorated and lit up in the centre of town, it had been a lifelong obsession. The two guys hung back watching her, Cassian hauling the axe over his shoulder, Azriel plugged into his phone answering work emails. Which, quite frankly, was unacceptable. 

Cassian really had no choice when he sneak-thiefed the phone away from his fake boyfriend and pocketed it in his manly as fuck baby pink fur-lined winter coat which he  _ loved _ , okay? Even if Azriel did incessantly flick at the fluffy pom-poms attached to the drawstrings. It was by these very pom-poms that Az now grabbed him and brought him down close to his face. “Don’t you dare,” he growled, a demanding hand outstretched. 

“No work on holiday. How the hell do you even get internet signal up here?”

“There are many benefits in working for the right people.”

To shut him up - and because Lena was glancing back at them - Cass just kissed him, and utilised the moment of shock to scoop him up and throw him over his non-axe-occupied shoulder. Well fed or not, he was still a scrawny bastard and light as a feather, so Cass had no trouble continuing on his cheerful way, even as Azriel cursed him to hell and back. “Love you too, dearest,” Cass said, grinning over at the awaiting Lena. 

Sticking her arm out, she pointed to a stubby little tree. “This one.”

“But it’s just a  _ baby _ .”

“We’re having this one.”

“It-” Cassian was about to argue when he realised Azriel was utilising his new position to pluck his phone back out of his coat pocket. “Okay, whatever tree you want, so long as you look after this.” Cass handed the phone over to his sister, and had absolute faith that she, the beacon of true devious mischief, could keep it secret, keep it safe. 

“I hate you,” grumbled a defeated Azriel. 

“Now is that anyway to talk to your beloved?”

Watching them, Lena fell uncharacteristically quiet. “You alright there short stuff?” Cass asked, ruffling her earmuff clad hair. Normally, she’d scowl at being reminded how she was the only one of the family unblessed by ridiculous tall-genes, but this time she just smiled kind of soft and happy. 

“Just thinking.”

“Yeah? About what?”

He was too distracted, and Az made use of it to wriggle free and drop back down into the snow, dusting himself off. He didn’t remain free for long though, because soon Lena had them both in a tiny-armed hug. “How lucky I am that I don’t have to put up with more of your stupid boyfriends and girlfriends. And how nice it is you two are with each other. But you have to promise I get to be the maid of honour at your wedding, or you’re both fired.” 

Az had gone kind of quiet. It was a quiet Cassian understood; A guilt, a gut-deep realisation that this wasn’t some stupid prank anymore, and that things were rapidly getting out of hand. For him, it was something else too. He wasn’t sure what, a warmth, a longing, a pining for something. Maybe he just liked the idea of getting married, of getting to see Lena be  _ so excited  _ for the dresses and the cake and the decorations and all of it. 

She’d get that with Rhys and Feyre though. After all, this wasn’t even real. 

“If we ever get married, I solemnly swear you shall be the one and only candidate for such a prestigious role,” Cass vowed, taking Az’s hand because he knew that look on his face, the paling, the awkward averted gaze. Giving his scarred fingers a tight squeeze, he hugged Lena back and pecked the top of her head. “As if we’d ever ask anyone else.”

“Good. I’m glad you know your duties,” Lena said, and the worst part was they could hear the way it broke with tears. 

 

*

 

It was a fairly normal evening for the family during the winter holidays. Mor, Andy, and Vassa were all over in the kitchen area, filling the house with the spice-laden smell of cooking and mulled wine brewing. Meanwhile, the rest of them were all gathered on the sofas, armchairs, and beanbags, working their way through the compiled list of ‘official’ winter movies. 

What was not fairly normal was how Cassian was feeling. He should be feeling fan-fucking-tastic, given how they had his childhood favourite film ‘An American Tail’ playing on the television, and there were four different flavours of popcorn being passed around the couches. Instead, he was hyper aware of the warm body curled up against his arm, of the dark hair tickling his jaw whenever he shifted.

Az didn’t seem to notice a thing. This was the one film he didn’t read through, since by now he’d learned that Cassian could and  _ would _ throttle him if he dared insult the great mouse tale by snubbing it so cruelly.  He was half asleep if anything, eyes half-closed in a lazy, contented fashion as he rested his head against Cass’s shoulder. The only sign that he wasn’t on the brink of dreamland was his offering of the popcorn bowl to his pillow, who took it with a start, realising he’d been staring at the man cutting off all feeling from his arm. 

It wasn’t like they’d never been like this before. Hell,  Az had employed use of him as a pillow every damn time Cass had forced him to watch one of his favourite movies. And he himself had often utilised Az’s lap as a headrest during the other’s more serious documentary marathons, or when they went out to the park and luxuriated in the sunshine. They’d always been touchy feely with one another, even if the idea of Az as ‘touchy feely’ sounded bizarre. He kept a two foot distance from nearly everyone. Cass had always been the exception to that rule.

So why, if this was so normal, did Cass feel so flustered? Why was it that every micro-adjustment of Az’s position sent heated wiggles straight into his stomach? Why did he feel so concerned that Az be comfortable? 

Had he always been this way? Certainly not. Most times in the past he’d just cackled whenever Az complained that he was crushing him when he used  _ him _ as a pillow. But then he’d always been a loyal, obedient pillow himself. Was this the norm? Maybe he was just kinda drunk? After all, Mor had enslaved him to be the official wine tester back before they’d put the film on, a role he had accepted most graciously.

He’d ask himself ‘why the hell am I feeling this way?’ but he didn’t want to know the answer. Besides, he already knew it. 

Later, when they were half way through the next film (Feyre’s apparent favourite, ‘Elf’), things were no better. Cass was pretty sure his arm was going to drop off from lack of bloodflow, since he couldn’t feel a damn thing down there, but he didn’t have it in him to disturb the sleeping man atop him. Lena and Feyre were snickering from the beanbags at said sleeping man, who was quietly snoring, in a very un-Az-like fashion.  

“I’m taking sleeping beauty to bed,” Cass announced, to defend his maiden’s honour. Slipping out from under the poor bastard, he scooped him up and navigated through the beanbag-couch maze, bidding goodnight to the answering chorus of ‘awhhhh’s. 

“Wait, don’t forget your share,” Mor called, tucking the bottled mulled-wine she’d made into the crook of his arm so that it flattened down Az’s Cass-shoulder-bedhead. 

Trudging through the snow in his socks (not great) Cass shouldered his way into their cabin and carefully deposited the sleeping male down onto the bed. Judging by the sleeping, soft snoring, and the mumbling, the wine had really gotten to him fast. It was kind of funny. And cute. And far too endearing.

It meant nothing when Cass ruffled the dork’s hair and helped tuck him into bed. Sitting beside him, he watched him snooze for a while before popping his bottle’s cork and taking a swig. He needed it after the night he’d had. Not to mention the near-fatality of his arm. How watching his favourite films could be so stressful, he didn’t know. All he knew was Az had been really, really warm. 

Outside, the predicted storm was gathering wind speed, rattling the windows and door. Cass did his duties of shuttering the windows and closing the hatches, so to speak, bottle in hand and mulled wine in stomach. All he wanted was to pass out into the blissful oblivion of sleep and forget about the dawning realisations that were threatening to come to the forefront of his brain.

“Cass?” A groggy voice mumbled from back in the bed. “Cass? Where-?”

“Back in the cabin,” he answered, padding through to where the princess was sitting up yawning. There was so much he  _ could _ say. Instead, he just offered him the dregs of the bottle. “Wanna make that hangover even worse?”

“Always.”

Taking the poison, Az drained it dry and rubbed his dark stained lips with the back of his hand. Thanks to how he’d slept, he was a dishevelled mess, hair sticking up at odd angles, face puffy, clothes askew. 

He looked really hot.

“You alright?” Az murmured as Cassian tried to fight back the bad bad thoughts that were not allowed into his brain. He was carefully stuffing them back down into a tightly locked box when Az caught his wrist. “You’ve been acting off all evening.”

“Not enough wine,” Cass replied with a laugh that was too hysterical, too shrill. This was why he wasn’t some government secret agent: he couldn’t act for shit. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, slumping down onto his side of the bed, massaging his temples. “I just. Weird day. Head being a douchecanoe.” 

“You’ve been taking your meds?” Az asked, as if he hadn’t been checking and delivering them with a glass of water in hand every morning.  

“Yeah. Just one of those days I guess.”

Still with those delicate, scarred fingers holding Cass’s wrist, he pulled him closer and shuffled so that they were knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder. Combined with the wine, it left the room feeling awfully hot. “Anything I can do to help?” Az asked, though he was only able to watch his lips, the red-purple stain of them from the wine, the way they were cracked at one corner, how good they were at wry smirks. Cass really,  _ really  _ liked those lips.    

Cass shouldn’t do it. 

Shouldn’t ask. 

He’d never recover.

“Drunk makeout?” He asked, because he fucking hated himself apparently. 

Az, ignorant to the screaming in the other’s head, chuckled. “Is my fake boyfriend feeling neglected?”

“Terribly.”

“My apologies,” he purred, all smooth, all impossibly, destructively seductive, because Az drunk was a force to be reckoned with and all in all he was wreaking havoc deep in Cass’s gut (and worse, somewhere further down below). “Promise I’ll make it up to you.”

And he really, really did.

Az had this mouth. This fucking incredible mouth. Cass had dated a fair truckload of people in his life, and had one night stands with a truckload more, but never had he met anyone who kissed like Az. He graduated from slow and tender to hot and heavy in this  _ way _ that left Cass feeling like jelly, like he didn’t know who or what he was outside of those kisses. By the end, he was on his back on the mattress, dizzy, disorientated, and entirely undone. 

“Better?” Az asked, those fingers of his stroking his cheek like this was real, like they were both helplessly in love. 

“Yes,” Cass lied. 


End file.
